Technology Spending Forecast: IT Budgets Set to Grow -- a Little

(user snapshots)
Here Comes the Capital

Organization: Edison Properties LLC, a privately held commercial real estate company

Location: Newark, N.J.

Top IT Executive: Guy Lavalette, CIO

IT Staff: 18

Users: More than 500

IT Budget: IT capital budget for 2007 will increase a whopping 20%.

IT Strategy: Enhance the experience of both internal and external customers

Business Drivers: Expand into new markets and improve customer service

Projects: A multiphase customer relationship management (CRM) project that will replace manual processes and a homegrown AS/400-based green screen system for CRM. Another project involves modernizing an AS/400 application; and migrating to a .NET Web-based development environment.

Rationale: "We would like to be more customer-centric," Lavalette says. "We are a healthy company that is looking to raise the bar."

IT-Business Alignment: Lavalette's IT group is currently working closely with the business leaders to design the new business processes that will be incorporated into the CRM system.

Operational Increase

Organization: Sole Technology Inc., an apparel maker for the extreme sports set

Location: Lake Forest, Calif.

Top IT Executive: George Bock, senior director of IT

IT Staff: 21 and growing

Users: Nearly 500

IT Budget: Operational budget will increase by more than 10%; capital budget will remain flat.

IT Strategy: Support growth

Business Drivers: Expansion in Europe

Projects: Implement Microsoft Dynamics enterprise resource planning software and build out electronic data interchange infrastructure to extend communications to factories and partners in Asia; roll out mobile devices; embark on business intelligence and reporting initiatives. "The plan is to leverage [Microsoft] SharePoint as the foundation for better content management and communications," he says.

Notable: After a recent restructuring, Bock reports to the COO rather than the CFO. "Because I report to the COO, IT holds a bit of a heavier hand," he says.

< PREV PAGE   |   1  |   2  |  3  |   4  |   5  |   6   |   NEXT PAGE  >

Digg This!     StumbleUpon     Del.icio.us